Dec. 29, 2013: Boulder County sheriff's Deputy Brandon Bussard shoots and kills Christopher George, 43, at his home southwest of Longmont after he displayed a gun when Bussard responded to a call by George's mother saying he had been holed up in his room for days. The following month, that shooting was found to be justified.

Nov. 24, 2013: Boulder police officer Vincent Gallerani shoots and kills Michael Habay at Wimbledon Condominiums, 3009 Madison St., after responding to calls of a man armed with a knife and a machete and allegedly making threatening remarks and "stabbing a post" outside his apartment. The shooting was later ruled to be justified.

May 22, 2013: Longmont police officer Brent Cairns shoots Jonathan Shank after Shank confronted him with a loaded AR-15 when his Subaru Legacy was pulled over on Ken Pratt Boulevard at 2 a.m., with no headlights activated. Gunfire was exchanged, Cairns was not hurt, and Shank was hit three times. Shank pleaded guilty to attempted murder of a police officer and is to be sentenced next week.

A University of Colorado student was shot multiple times by Boulder police early Friday morning after an overnight standoff that police say escalated when the suspect pointed a weapon — later determined to be a pellet gun — at officers.

The incident began when police attempted to resolve an apparent disagreement over cab fare at the corner of 12th and College streets around 1 a.m. Friday, officials said.

During the ensuing standoff, police said they saw Stewart point a gun at them through a window on an exterior-facing door of his ground-floor University Hill apartment. At that point, they opened fire.

The weapon found at the scene of the officer-involved shooting in Boulder. The gun is a pellet gun that is a replica of a Smith & Wesson semiautomatic handgun. It was found in the apartment in which the suspect barricaded himself. (Courtesy photo/Boulder Police Department)

Later, after a search of the apartment, detectives said they found a pellet gun replica of a Smith & Wesson semiautomatic behind the front door.

Stewart sustained multiple gunshot wounds and was transported to Boulder Community Health. His injuries are not considered life-threatening.

Though police maintain they opened fire only after Stewart pointed his weapon at them, it is not yet known whether Stewart ever shot at any officers with the pellet gun.

"Officers did find BBs in and around his apartment, but it's not at all clear whether they were fired in the midst of this incident," Boulder spokeswoman Sarah Huntley said.

Meanwhile, friends of Stewart who visited the shooting scene Friday insisted he does not own a lethal firearm.

"He's a great kid. He's literally one of my best friends," said one CU student, who asked that his name not be published. "I have no idea what to think of this."

Police have been unable to speak with Stewart, as he is still being treated for the gunshot wounds.

Huntley said Stewart will be taken into custody on an arrest warrant as soon as he's been medically cleared. The charges he'll face haven't been released yet.

The incident left two officers with minor injuries.

Huntley said one of them received a "superficial leg wound" from a ricocheted fragment of a bullet, fired by another officer.

A second officer was injured by a flying piece of glass to the eye, which occurred when officers broke a window of an exterior, garden-level door that faces College Street.

A Boulder police offer is seen during a standoff at a University Hill apartment building early Friday morning. The suspect was shot by police, and two officers received minor injuries. (Courtesy 7News Denver)

Both officers have been treated for their injuries and released, Huntley said.

'Fast-moving' situation

Police said that according to Stewart's friends, he had consumed alcohol at an establishment in downtown Boulder. Concerned about his intoxication level, friends put him in a taxi to ensure his safe arrival home.

As the taxi neared its destination at about 1 a.m., it appeared to the driver that Stewart was planning to bail out of the cab without paying. The taxi driver pulled up and quickly stopped outside the police annex office at 13th and College streets and started shouting for help. An officer came outside and saw the cab driver chasing a man.

"At the time the initial officer joined the pursuit, it wasn't entirely clear what the situation was," Huntley said. "This was a very fast-moving, quickly evolving, dangerous situation."

The first responding officer radioed for back-up support from other officers, seven of whom responded. The suspect ran inside the apartment building at 1090 11th St., a few blocks away.

Shortly after that, police said, officers reported the suspect pointed a gun at them, and "shots were then fired."

What caused the situation to escalate, Huntley said, "was the suspect's decision to take a gun, albeit a pellet gun, and point it at officers."

Huntley added that officers are trained to shoot for a suspect's "center mass" when trying to neutralize the kind of threat first perceived in this incident — before the relatively harmless nature of Stewart's weapon was known.

"Their training is not to shoot for the hand or the foot because somebody can continue to come at you in that situation," she said. "When an officer makes a decision that they need to use deadly force, they're going to respond in the way in which they were trained. That's not unique to the Boulder Police Department."

Stewart remained barricaded inside his apartment in the 12-unit, three-story building for about two and half hours, police said, prompting evacuations in the area. SWAT officers were able to make contact with him shortly after 3:30 a.m. and bring him out to receive medical treatment.

As the sun came up Friday, a heavily armored SWAT vehicle was still parked at the front of the complex, and witnesses said they had seen it repeatedly ramming a privacy fence that encircled the front of the property, pounding it down at the point between the suspect's unit and College Avenue.

'Officer down!'

During the standoff, several surrounding residences were evacuated.

Ross Palmer, who lives in an apartment upstairs from the suspect, said he was awakened by police sirens.

"I thought it was just another DUI or some drunk kid," he said.

But Palmer said he then heard about eight shots.

"I heard a lot of screaming and, 'Officer down!'" Palmer said.

Palmer said officers told him to lock himself in his bathroom before he was evacuated. He watched the rest of the standoff from a neighboring house.

Palmer said he has only lived in the building for a few weeks and did not know the suspect.

Sarah Bennett, a 21-year-old recent CU graduate, lives on the top floor of the building.

Twelve hours later, she described herself as still very shaken by the experience of being trapped in her unit for nearly three hours before being evacuated in her pajamas by SWAT team members toting bullet-proof shields.

She had called 911 at 1:13 a.m., immediately after hearing the gunfire.

"They told me to lock my door and lock my windows and stay in my apartment and not answer the door for anyone who wasn't SWAT team or a cop, and stay away from the windows."

She described suffering a panic attack during the episode, and her only comfort was staying on the phone with her roommate who, returning from work at that time, was restrained by police caution tape at the end of the block.

"At one point I was lying on the floor and they cut the power to the whole building," Bennett said. "I heard them coming in, breaking glass and running over the fence" to gain access to the suspect's apartment. "It was really terrifying."

Bennett said she has been told it will be a full day, "or maybe two," before residents are allowed back in.

'At least there's no body bags'

Kristen Sullivan also heard the shots from a nearby house but said she just rolled over and went back to sleep. She didn't realize what had happened until she woke up to several texts asking if she was OK.

"It's crazy," she said. "I was really shocked. It's Boulder."

Her roommate, Alli Cooper, was watching the standoff and initially thought there might have been a murder after seeing the caution tape go up.

"They had some really big guns, so it was a little scary," Cooper said.

He noted: "At least there's no body bags. That wouldn't have been nice to wake up to."

Numerous photographs of the episode were taken by Jason Lutz, who lives across from the apartment complex at 1105 11th St. He snapped his shots while hidden in bushes there until spotted by a police sniper and ordered to move. For Lutz, who moved from Chicago to Boulder on May 17, it was an eye-opening initiation to his new town.

"I was in Chicago for four years and never had a shooting this close to my house," Lutz said.

Much of the drama was witnessed by young men and women staying across College Avenue at the Sigma Pi fraternity.

One of them was CU junior Liesl Breuner. She said she and friends were able to watch some of the incident from the fraternity's south-facing porch-balcony — until they were displaced by two police snipers.

"We were all really scared," she said. "Especially with what happened at Santa Barbara. We thought it might be someone on a rampage."

'Anything can happen anywhere'

The Boulder County Critical Incident Team is investigating the shooting at the request of the Boulder Police Department and is expected to release a report in the next few weeks.

The three officers who discharged their weapons have been placed on administrative leave with pay, which is standard procedure in such cases.

"Officers were confronted with a situation that was quickly evolving, and there was little information available about what had prompted the initial altercation with the taxi cab driver," Interim Police Chief Greg Testa said in a prepared statement. "While the investigation is continuing, it appears the officers responded to a perceived deadly threat."

The North West Suburban Taxi involved in the incident still sat just inside the crime-scene perimeter hours after the incident, parked somewhat askew, at 12th and College.

Megan Dubray, a representative of Aiello Communications, speaking for the cab company, said, "The driver is OK, and he is cooperating with police."

She said the driver alerted police to his passenger's "suspicious behavior," which Dubray believed indicated an unwillingness to pay the required fare.

The early-morning incident left many who live in the area shaken that gunfire and a police standoff had disrupted the usually mellow scene on University Hill.

CU student Kenta Fukushima said he had just turned off his television and was falling asleep, at 12th and College, when he was startled by the gunfire. The next thing he heard were "sirens coming from all over the Hill, and the burning out of tires."

As he watched the police continue to work, Fukushima said, "It just shows you that pretty much anything can happen anywhere."

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